Wingo, 4 – 22-year veteran of the computer, academic, and space communities also an integral force in the use of commercial systems for use in space and flew the first Macintosh on the Space Shuttle as experiment controller, received degree in Engineering Physics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville where he won honors for his academic publications and for his unique approach to small satellite development, Founder & President of SkyCorp Incorporated and has developed a patented approach to the development of highly capable spacecraft manufactured on orbit on the Space Shuttle or International Space Station (David, July 1, 2004, “Moonrush” p. 89-90) JV
Platinum and the Moon It is my contention that we can get platinum and other PGMs from the Moon in quantities well in excess of the known reserves of the Earth. These resources are derived from the impacts of metal asteroids on the Moon's surface. At this time, it makes more sense to obtain the PGMs from the Moon rather than the Asteroids due to the long round trip times and the technological difficulty of operating that far from the Earth for extended periods of time with the technology that we have today. After a robust lunar infrastructure is operating, it will then become feasible and profitable to go after the asteroidal resources, but not before. If we can shift the production of these high value metals off planet, we can have a material effect on the quality of life and the environment in South Africa, Russia, and any other location where PGMs are mined. This can be the starting point for developing the resources of the solar system for the benefit of the earth and it becomes a powerful argument for this development. I have coined a phrase for this development that works in the context of the new exploration vision laid out by President Bush. We go to mars to extend our civilization there, We go to the moon to save our civilization here. The exploration vision can be expanded to encompass the development of the resources of the Moon. especially the platinum and other PGMs necessary to enable our civilization to permanently transcend the limits to growth as outlined earlier. What evidence do we have that these materials exist on the Moon and in economically viable concentrations and quantities? The answer is that we have a lot of evidence and it comes from our study of meteorites, spectrographic studies of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), and the study of impacts and resources derived from impact sites on the Earth. Studies go our way – PGM’s are on the moon
Wingo, 4 – 22-year veteran of the computer, academic, and space communities also an integral force in the use of commercial systems for use in space and flew the first Macintosh on the Space Shuttle as experiment controller, received degree in Engineering Physics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville where he won honors for his academic publications and for his unique approach to small satellite development, Founder & President of SkyCorp Incorporated and has developed a patented approach to the development of highly capable spacecraft manufactured on orbit on the Space Shuttle or International Space Station (David, July 1, 2004, “Moonrush” p. 97-99) JV
Lunar Impacts In the four billion year lifetime of the Moon, millions of asteroids, large and small, have impacted the Moon. There has been little tectonic activity to resurface the Moon, as has been the case here on the Earth. What little resurfacing there has been is starkly visible in the form of the Mare regions. The number of craters on the Moon is directly related to the age of the surface. The highland regions of the Moon are 3.8 to 4.2 billion years old and therefore have the greatest density of craters. The lowlands are 3.1 to 3.8 billion years old and have fewer craters. There should not be that much difference in the number of craters, but there is, leading to the postulation of a "heavy bombardment" period during the period just after the formulation of the lunar highlands. Figure 8.4 illustrates the frequency and size distribution of highland and Mare craters: In the three charts of crater frequency vs. size, Mare Tranquillitatis has the fewest number of craters, implying the youngest age. Mare Nubium has 1.4 times more craters per unit area, and the Highlands region of Alphonsus has 2.5 times as many impacts per unit area than in Tranquillitatis, making this the oldest region of the three.xiii The number of craters J km in diameter or larger for the three regions are: Mare Tranquillitatis 10,000 Craters per million square kilometers Mare Nubium 14,000 Craters per million square kilometers Alphonsus Region 25,000 Craters per million square kilometers This data was derived from three of the early lunar impacting spacecraft, Ranger 7, 8, and 9. Dr. C. A. Cross examined the pictures from these three spacecraft and developed an inverse power law with a slope of --2 that allows for a mathematical extrapolation to allow derivation of crater frequencies and sizes outside of the resolution of the Ranger images From this information some gross generalizations can be made. Since the total area of the Mare on the Moon is approximately 19% of the total surface area, and the total surface area of the Moon is approximately 38 million square kilometers, the number of craters larger than 1 kilometer in diameter is about 86,400 in the Mare regions and 845,000 in the highlands regions of the Moon. Of these impacts, 3% are M class metal asteroid impact scars. This means M class impactors make up about 2,592 impacts in the Mare regions and 25,350 in the Highland regions of the Moon. For comparison, a 1 kilometer impact is an object about the size of the Canyon Diablo impactor (Meteor Crater Arizona), which was a metal asteroid about 15 meters in diameter. It weighed nearly 100,000 metric tons and would have contained 1-10,000 kilos of PGMs. with the total number of M class metal impactors in the range of -28,000 objects of same general size as the Canyon Diablo impactor, this works out to be a lot of metal. If at the absolute minimum, all of the impacts of M class objects were the same size as the Canyon Diablo impactor, the total amount of metal would be 3 billion metric tons, having 62 million kilos of PGMs (assuming 20 grams per ton average PGM concentration), 1.2 times the total amount considered commercially viable to extract on the earth by the South Africans. In truth, the amount is probably a 1,000 to 100,000 times that amount based upon the scaling law derived by Cross as shown in figure 8.4. However compelling this first brush thought experiment seems to be, the reality is a little different.